This invention relates to a cheese-like foodstuff made from soy protein and a method for preparing same.
Considerable effort has been directed to preparing cheese-like foodstuffs from protein extracted from soy beans. This so-called soy cheese has many advantages over natural cheeses made from dairy materials because of the limited, and often unstable supply of dairy materials, health problems associated with foodstuffs having high milk fat content, and the substantially lower cost of soy protein as compared to dairy materials. Prior attempts to produce soy cheese has not been adopted commercially to any great extent because it is very difficult to obtain a soy cheese having body and texture comparable to natural cheese. When conventional coagulants, such as calcium sulfate, are used with fermented soy milk, the resultant curd generally is much weaker than curd produced from dairy materials, i.e., the curd is extremely brittle. Consequently, in prior art soy cheese making processes, it has been necessary to use texture reinforcement additives, such as milk solids and/or alkaline metal caseinates. The use of such additives tend to minimize or eliminate many of the potential advantages of soy cheese.
It is well known that soy milk can be treated with proteolytic enzymes (proteases) to deodorize the soy milk and thereby minimize unpleasant beany flavor frequently associated therewith. This treatment tends to inhibit curd formation in prior art cheese making processes and, therefore, has not been considered to be an available alternative in these processes.